Custom KPI configuration versus standard dashboard widgets for analytics-reporting: which offers better flexibility and maintainability?

ERP Infor CloudSuite
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1

I’m evaluating our approach to KPI dashboards and wanted to get the community’s perspective on custom KPI configuration versus using standard widgets. We’ve built several custom KPIs for our executive dashboards - things like custom revenue calculations, complex inventory metrics, and multi-dimensional performance indicators. The custom approach gives us exactly what we need, but the configuration effort is substantial, and I’m concerned about long-term maintenance.

On the other hand, standard dashboard widgets are much easier to set up and maintain. They work well for common metrics, but we often need to supplement them with additional calculations or data sources. I’m curious about others’ experiences - when do you choose custom KPIs over standard widgets? How do you balance the flexibility of customization against the maintenance burden? And what’s been your experience with upgrades when you have heavily customized analytics?

2

We went through this exact evaluation last year. Our approach now is “standard first, custom only when necessary.” We use standard widgets for about 70% of our dashboards and reserve custom KPIs for truly unique business logic that can’t be achieved with standard configurations. The upgrade impact is real - our last major upgrade required rework of about 40% of our custom KPIs because the underlying data structures changed. Standard widgets just worked after the upgrade with minimal adjustments.

3

From an upgrade and support perspective, I’d add that Infor support is much more helpful with standard widgets. When you have issues with custom KPIs, you’re often on your own because the configuration is unique to your environment. We’ve had situations where a standard widget had a bug, and Infor provided a patch within days. For custom KPI issues, the response is usually “this is custom code, you need to troubleshoot it.” That’s not a criticism of Infor - it’s just the reality of customization. Factor support responsiveness into your decision-making.

4

The maintenance burden of custom KPIs goes beyond just upgrades. You need to consider documentation, knowledge transfer, and ongoing support. When the person who built a complex custom KPI leaves, it can take weeks to understand what it’s actually calculating. Standard widgets are self-documenting in a sense - anyone familiar with CloudSuite can understand what they’re showing. That said, for competitive advantage metrics or truly unique business processes, custom KPIs are worth the investment. Just make sure you have solid documentation and multiple people who understand the configuration.

5

Those are excellent points about documentation and knowledge transfer. We’ve definitely experienced the “custom KPI expert leaves” problem. I’m wondering if there’s a middle ground - maybe using standard widgets as the foundation and adding calculated fields or custom data sources rather than building fully custom KPIs from scratch? Has anyone had success with that hybrid approach?

6

This discussion touches on the fundamental tension in enterprise analytics: flexibility versus maintainability. Let me share a framework that addresses all three focus areas:

Configuration Effort Analysis: Custom KPIs require significantly more effort across the entire lifecycle. Initial configuration typically takes 3-5x longer than standard widgets - what might be a 2-hour standard widget setup becomes a 1-2 day custom KPI project. But the real cost is ongoing maintenance:

  • Standard widgets: Minimal maintenance, primarily updates to filters or data refresh schedules
  • Custom KPIs: Regular review of calculation logic, data source validation, performance tuning, and compatibility testing with each system update

The break-even point is around 20-30 uses of the same metric. If a custom KPI will be used across multiple dashboards and reports, the initial effort amortizes better. For one-off metrics, standard widgets with custom filters are almost always more cost-effective.

Maintenance and Standard Widget Benefits: Standard widgets offer several compelling advantages:

  1. Upgrade safety: Infor tests standard widgets with each release, ensuring compatibility
  2. Performance optimization: Standard widgets benefit from Infor’s ongoing performance improvements
  3. Documentation: Built-in help and community resources
  4. Support: Full Infor support coverage
  5. Best practices: Standard widgets embody Infor’s recommended approaches to common metrics

Custom KPIs, conversely, require:

  • Internal documentation maintenance
  • Regression testing with each upgrade
  • Performance monitoring and optimization
  • Knowledge retention strategies
  • Potential rework when underlying data models change

Our experience shows that maintenance costs for custom KPIs average 15-20% of initial development cost annually. A custom KPI that took 40 hours to build will require 6-8 hours per year to maintain.

Impact on Upgrades and Support: This is where custom KPIs show their biggest drawbacks:

Upgrade impact assessment:

  • Standard widgets: Review release notes, test in sandbox, typically 1-2 hours per major upgrade
  • Custom KPIs: Full regression testing, potential reconfiguration, data model verification - often 20-40 hours per major upgrade for a typical custom KPI portfolio

We’ve seen organizations delay upgrades by 6-12 months because of concerns about custom KPI compatibility. That delay has its own costs - missing out on new features, security updates, and performance improvements.

Support considerations:

  • Infor support will troubleshoot standard widget issues directly
  • For custom KPIs, you’re responsible for isolating whether issues are in your custom logic or the underlying platform
  • Third-party consultants charge premium rates for custom KPI troubleshooting because each implementation is unique

Recommended Decision Framework:

Use standard widgets when:

  • The metric aligns with common business needs (revenue, costs, inventory turns, etc.)
  • You can achieve 80%+ of requirements with standard configuration
  • The audience is broad and doesn’t need highly specialized views
  • You have limited internal analytics development resources

Consider custom KPIs when:

  • Your business process is truly unique and provides competitive advantage
  • Standard widgets can’t represent the metric even with creative configuration
  • The metric will be used extensively (20+ times across dashboards/reports)
  • You have dedicated resources for ongoing maintenance
  • The business value clearly exceeds the total lifecycle cost

Hybrid Approach Best Practices:

The most successful implementations use a layered approach:

  1. Standard widgets for presentation (70-80% of dashboards)
  2. Custom data models/views for business logic (where uniqueness lives)
  3. Calculated fields within standard widgets for minor adjustments
  4. Custom KPIs only for truly unique visualizations or calculations impossible with standard tools

This keeps the upgrade surface area small while still supporting unique business needs. The custom logic in data models is more stable across upgrades than custom presentation logic.

Practical Recommendations:

  1. Establish a governance process: Require business case justification for any custom KPI, including expected usage and maintenance plan
  2. Document everything: Custom KPIs need comprehensive documentation including calculation logic, data sources, dependencies, and testing procedures
  3. Build expertise: Ensure at least 2-3 people understand each custom KPI configuration
  4. Regular review: Quarterly review of custom KPI usage - decommission those that aren’t delivering value
  5. Upgrade testing protocol: Maintain a sandbox environment and test all custom KPIs before each upgrade

The analytics community has largely converged on “standard first, custom when justified” as the sustainable approach. The flexibility of custom KPIs is appealing, but the long-term maintenance burden and upgrade risks often outweigh the benefits unless the business case is compelling. For most organizations, creative use of standard widgets with custom data sources provides the right balance.